If your business plans to discharge trade effluent into any public foul sewer within our supply area, you must get our permission before any discharges take place. This is a legal requirement under the Water Industry Act 1991.

What is trade effluent?

Trade effluent is any liquid waste (effluent) discharged into our sewers from a business or industrial process.

This can be best described as anything other than domestic sewage (toilet, bath or sink waste) or uncontaminated surface water and roof drainage (rainwater).

Any groundwater or trade effluent discharge must be made to the public foul sewer so that it can be properly treated at our sewage treatment works before being released back into the environment.

The application process

If you would like to apply for a trade effluent consent or a groundwater discharge permit, please follow the link below to complete our online form.

• Make a trade effluent consent or groundwater permit enquiry

After processing your enquiry, we will send you a document called a preliminary details form for you to complete and email to us, along with other supporting information.

Once we have received your preliminary details form, we will assess the acceptability of the discharge to the receiving sewer, pumping stations and sewage treatment works.

If the risk of accepting a discharge is acceptable, we will issue you with a formal notice or application. You must return this fully signed and dated, so that we can issue you with formal documentation that will allow you to discharge.

Consent to discharge trade effluent will be issued for discharges of trade effluent and groundwater discharges will be issued with a permit.

Stages in the application process

1	Online enquiry form
2	Preliminary details form
3	Assessment
4	Formal notice of discharge
5	Formal documentation